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Welcome <> Khush Aamdeed <> Shubh Kaamnayen Welcome to Hamari Boli Wiki, the central hub of all activities and happenings under The Hamari Boli Initiative, a full-scale Language Planning enterprise operating as an not-for-profit social venture, being executed and implemented as a wiki-based open-source collaborative which any one on internet net can access can contribute to. All content and data resulting from various HBI activities and ventures is open-source and licenced under Creative Commons BY-SA licence. In the following lines, we hope to convince you of the necessity and urgency of Hindi-Urdu reform and modernization. Hope you find it all a one-of-a-kind endeavour and join us in making it all happen. __TOC__ What is "Hamari Boli"? :Main article: Hamari Boli "Hamari Boli" '(Our Language) is the new name of Hindi-Urdu, the Lingua Franca of Desis worldwide. With dozens of mutually intelligible local variants, and over 1 Billion 1st and 2nd language speakers, it is the second most spoken language in the world! Hamari Boli is the most widely used language for everyday communication among the common-folk across India and Pakistan and the Desi diaspora worldwide. It is the everyday apolitical lingo used by close to a billion South Asians to communicate across borders and cultures. UAE is the best example of the South Asian lingua franca status of Hamari Boli. In Dubai, Hamari Boli is the language that 4 construction workers from Dhaka, Lahore, Mumbai and Kathmandu use to communicate with each other, tho it’s not first language for any of them. As the most widely spoken language across South Asia and among 50Million+ Desi diapsora worldwide, Hamari Boli is the living testament to the diversity and inclusive spirit of the South Asian Sub-Continent, gratefully acknowledging the richness and diverse unity of the Desi Culture as evident in the meticulous amalgamation of indigenous and foreign cultures from the early Indus Valley Civilization to later Aryan settlers to the Middle Vedic Civilizations to the Afghan and Turkic period to the British Raj to modern Day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh -entire South Asia indeed- and the Diaspora Desis and their descendants spread all over the world. Simply put, Hamari Boli is re-unified & modernized Hindi-Urdu written in Roman alphabet, with a combined vocabulary drawn from both Standard Hindi and Urdu, regional desi languages, with generous helpings of English as exemplified by "Hamara Cinema", i.e. the world's most prolific cinema, The Bollywood :) What is the Hamari Boli Initiative? :''Main article: Hamari Boli Initiative, :Main article: Open Language Planning A genuine first ever in Applied Linguistics i.e. Open Language Planning, '''The "Hamari Boli Initiative" is a full-scale "Language Planning" Enterprise aimed at 'Hindi-Urdu' Reform and Modernization encompassing all four LP Domains; Besides being a bonafide Applied Linguistics enterprise, Hamari Boli is also an apolitical initiative to; *'Finally ENABLE opensource collaboration' --otherwise IMPOSSIBLE-- among Devanagari, Nastaliq & Roman readers *'Create People-to-People Communication & Collaboration Platforms' where Desi scholars, researchers, academics, students, professionals and everyone interested cooperate in real time on crowd-powered and open-source endeavors that are of equal importance across both sides of the border. *'Reunite the Desi Lingua Franca '''facilitating cross communication across borders and bring Desi people from around the world together in cooperative endeavor for the benefit of all. *'Provide an apolitical environment to scholars and researchers''' to observe & study popular interaction, analyze sentiments, identify best practices, report problem areas and suggest solutions. *'Create framework, platforms and pronounced impetus for open-source development in Hamari Boli' (Text, Media, Software) *Promotion and popularization of FREE self education, peer-to-peer learning, open-source educational content, media, software and emerging educational tech and lowcost delivery models. What is the "Aazaad ''Standard"? :''Main article: Aazaad Standard ''Aazaad ''means Free/Open/Liberated in Hindi-Urdu. Open-source can also be translated as Aazaad in Hindi-Urdu. Aazaad Standard is conceptualized as the 21st century standardized register of Hindi-Urdu i.e. Hamari Boli. Since everything about the HB Initiative is opensource, the very Standard and Romanization scheme i.e. the bedrock of entire enterprise are also opensource/aazaad for everyone. Although Hamari Boli embraces the whole Hindi-Urdu spectrum, including all three scripts, i.e. Devangari, Nastaliq & Roman; Based on our experience at Khan Academy Hamari Boli, we are following and advocating some golden rules for language used in mass media and education, this is what we call the Aazaad Standard for Hindi-Urdu. '''and it encompasses three major language planning domains i.e; '''Lexicon & Style: #Use neutral vocab (Hindustani) as much as possible (like Bollywood) as in "Nahaana" for 'Bathing' instead of Standard Urdu 'Ghusl Karna' & Standard Hindi 'Ashnaan karna' #Use English words wherever more familiar (as in 'School' for Urdu 'Maktab' and Hindi 'Vidyala') or wherever a common word is not available. #All technical terms (science, maths etc) should be exclusively as per internationally recognized English conventions. e.g. Maths or Mathematics (even tho a common neutral word is available i.e. 'Hisaab' in addition to Urdu 'Ilm-e Riyazi' and 'Ganit Vidya' ) Script: *Preferably written in Standard English Alphabet, equally accessible to Devanagari, Nastaliq & Roman readers/writers alike. ''Aazaad'' Scheme for Hindi-Urdu Romanization :Main article: Aazaad Scheme for Hindi-Urdu Romanization Roman alphabet have been used for writing Hindi-Urdu since 1700s. Hundreds of works inclduding scores of Grammars and Dictionries were published by pioneer linguists and philologists like Dr. Gilchrist, J. T. Platt, Duncan Forbes etc using several romanization schemes. Most of the earlier schemes used diacritics to map indic phonemes to roman graphemes. Both Survey of India and Survey of Pakistan use simpilified Hunterian Transliteration System for Indic Romanization. Several modern systems such as ITRANS have been around for a while too, however, no one system or standard has gained wide currency since there's no 'oficial' attention. People intuitively follow the coventions evolved out of the application of hunterian scheme to the local accent of Hamari Boli. For now, we'll be starting with a modified Hunterian Scheme (in Public Domain), involving only Standard English Letters of Alphabet, available on every keyboard & keypad. However, since the very idea is "Open Language Planning", other suitable schemes and suggestions will also be evaluated, deliberated and accomodated here. Through community input and collaboration, we hope to refine and evolve an even more detailed system over time. 'Why Romanize?' :Main article: Romanization of Hindi-Urdu Roman Hindi-Urdu is already in vogue and the newer generations are all comfortable using it on web, IMs and SMS -Indians & Pakistanis send over 100Million SMSs daily in Roman-. Some specific arguments are; #Too much money and efforts are being wasted trying to address one of the two scripts. The extreme Hindi-Urdu digraphia essentially means doing the same thing twice! Font support, content production is always limited to one or the other script. With the neutralized Roman script, Hamari Boli will serve both Devanagari and Nastaliq readers thus freeing resources which can be pooled to produce much greater and better content. For example, a Hamari Boli Wikipedia! #By neutralizing the script, Hamari Boli will solve the illegibility problem and will make written Hindi-Urdu perfectly mutually legible thus making the works of Hindi and Urdu writers accessible to readers across both sides of the border. #Any kind of text based open source collaboration between Devanagari & Nastaliq readers is IMPOSSIBLE until and unless Hindi-Urdu is romanized #The difficulty of writing: QWERTY keyboards are designed specifically for Roman Alphabet, it is very difficult to type Nastaliq and Devanagari. #Since both Nastaliq and Devanagari are calligraphic styles, they suffer from legibility problems on computer/mobile screens. #Young generations: Both in India and Pakistan, the younger generations are all comfortable using Roman for electronic communication (Internet/SMS) and increasingly in writing. #Diaspora Desis: There are well over 50Million immigrants from the sub-continent around the world. Many later generation Desis can understand Hindi-Urdu very well but can’t read or write in default scripts. Why are we doing it? :Main article: Why Hamari Boli? Regardless of any political and communal sensitivities, the case for Hamari Boli is primarily motivated by the Utilitarian principle i.e "Maximum Good for the Maximum Numbers". Hindi-Urdu is actually one and the same language divided artificially for socio-cultural and politico-religious motivations. But this knowledge is not popular understanding and to this day, the divide plays a major role in communal identification in Indo-Pak. However, linguistics by & large is in agreement over their joint status. We're working to bridge the divide by bringing the whole range of Hindi-Urdu together (as spoken across India, Pakistan, greater South Asia and the 50Million+ Desi Diaspora) using roman script and develop & promote a neutral writing style as exemplified by Bollywood and popular media. We're of the opinion that; The real value and significance of Hindi-Urdu is in its being the Lingua Franca of the South Asian Subcontinent which is home to 1.7 Billion Desis, speaking 400+ languages, using 20+ distinct writing systems -- It is grave injustice and gross disservice to limit Hamari Boli's role, scope, status and appeal with communal/national contaminations. Per established Linguistic Standard, "Hindi-Urdu" (taken as one word) is the standard modern term for the erstwhile [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_language Hindustani], which was the official language and lingua francaof the British India. Hindi-Urdu(Hindustani) has 4 standardized registers (i.e. subsets); #[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Hindi Standard Hindi] (Shuddha/Manak/Nagari Hindi - The Official Language of India. Written in Devanagari. Heavily sanscritized and purged of all Persian, Turkic, Arabic heritage) #[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Urdu Standard Urdu] (Saaf/Salees Urdu - The Official Language of Pakistan. Written in Nastaliq. Heavily Persianized -and being actively Arabized these days- and purged of most Sanskrit and Prakrit heritage) #[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakhini Dakhini] (spoken in and around the Deccan plateue. written in Devanagari and Nastaliq both, called Hindi/Urdu respectively) #'Rekhta' Before 1947, Hindi / Urdu / Hindustani all were used synonymously to refer to one and the same language which was written in Nastaliq(predominantly) & Devanagari both. This is called "Digraphia" where a language is written in more than one script (a recognized socio-linguistic affliction) for reasons other than linguistic (cultural, political, religious, ethnic etc). Today, despite all government efforts, "Hindi-Urdu" (NOT Shudh Hindi or Saaf Urdu) is the everyday speech of native speakers, popular media and the Lingua Franca of Indo-Pak and all of South Asia indeed. called Urdu or Hindi respectively when written in Nastaliq or Devanagari. In addition to Digraphia, Hindi-Urdu also suffers from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diglossic_regions#Hindi Diglossia] which is yet another major sociolinguistic affliction resulting from linguistic elitism. It refers to situations where two varieties of one language are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" variety), a second, highly codified variety (labeled "H" or "high") is used in certain situations such as literature, government communication (documents, state media), or other specific settings, but not used for everyday conversation, mass education and mass media. In case of 'Hindi-Urdu'; *'In Pakistan '-- 'Standard(Saaf) Urdu' is the "High" variety, whereas 'Hindi-Urdu' is the "Low" variety used by the masses (called Urdu, written in Nastaliq and increasingly in Roman). *'In India', both 'Standard(Shudh) Hindi' and 'Standard(Saaf) Urdu' are the "H" varieties (written in devanagari & Nastaliq respectively), whereas 'Hindi-Urdu' is the "L" variety used by the masses and written in both Devanagari and Nastaliq (and called Hindi or Urdu resectively) as well as in Roman (electronic comm). Hindi-Urdu diglossia can be best contrasted with the Arabic situation where Modern Standard Arabic is the Official Language (the "H" variety) in all Arabic speaking countriesin West Asia & North Africa but the regional mass vernacular is one or the other dialect (various 'L' varieties). in fact, linguists argue that the different 'Varieties of Arabic' show far greater variation than 'Hindi-Urdu' (even to the point of mutual unintelligibility). But still, all these varieties are classified and recognized as dialects of Arabic. Similarly, Standard Hindi and Standard Urdu should be treated as two "High" varieties of 'Hindi-Urdu' and thus not suited for use in media intended for mass consumption by people from 400+ speech subgroups (using 20+ distinct writing systems). for example, Hindi Cinema will lose 99% of its viewership if it were to use Shudh Hindi. The Case for HamariBoli ('Hindi-Urdu') is partly inspired by Modern Simplified Chinese(Standard Mandarin) where Classical Chinese (the "H" variety) was successfully replaced with vernacular Mandarin during the New Culture Movement . Today, Standard Mandarin has become a fully developed lingua franca of mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore, most spoken language in the world and is also one of only 6 official UN languages. 'Enabling Open Text Collaboration' :Main article: Hindi-Urdu's Open Dilemma Being the Desi Lingua franca, Hamari Boli (natural Hindi-Urdu in Roman) is the only option to reach all Desis equally. However, the crippling Devanagari-Nastaliq Digraphia renders any kind of Opensource collaboration IMPOSSIBLE among Devanagari/Nastaliq/Roman writers unless each collaborator knows all three scripts. Hamari Boli resolves the dilemma by using neutral Roman script to create equally accessible opensource content and thus, for the first time, enables 'Open Collaboration' among the whole spectrum of Devanagari-Nastaliq-Roman readers & writers. 'The 'Open' Opportunity' :Main article: Open Desi Initiative , :Main article: Hindi-Urdu's Open Dilemma Besides resolving the Devanagari-Nastaliq dilemma, Hamari Boli Initiative is also meant to define and create frameworks, platforms and pronounced impetus for open-source development in Hamari Boli (Text, Media, Software) Opensource and Internet in general is an invaluable blessing in the acute scarcity of non-partisan and propaganda free information. Uncontaminated Objective Truth is 'Key' to dissolving propaganda induced prejudices and thus Opensource needs to be leveraged to the fullest to create lasting regional peace & harmony in South Asia. Since all traditional info and education channels are choked with fabricated myths, half-truths and exclusivist hyperbole, Internet as 'The Medium' and Opensource as 'The Method' is 'The Solution' to all the misinformation and educational challenges facing all South Asian nations. Internet penetration is growing at breakneck speed and the region already boasts 160Million+ internet users (150M in Indo-Pak alone) and the numbers are expected to at least triple by 2015 as smartphones are becoming evercommon! However, The Opensource opportunity is almost entirely neglected in Indo-Pak. Free, open-source textbooks like FlexBooks, content like Wikipedia, Instructional Media & evalutation tech like the Khan Academy are most promising approaches to ensure same quality education to everyone, everywhere at a fraction of cost and hassle than what the traditional system requires. We believe that the digital age has presented us Desis with an unprecedented opportunity in the form of "Instructional Media + Educational Technology + Open-Source Content Production & Delivery Model" which is inherently immune to establishment bias and most suitable for filtering status-quo lies with dispassionate, non-partisan scholarly analysis. Uncontaminated Objective Truth is 'Key' to dissolving propaganda induced prejudices and thus we must leverage Open-Source to the fullest to create lasting regional peace & harmony in South Asia. We're keenly working towards creating a framework and pronounced impetus for open-content in Hamari Boli, which in turn will also hopefully inspire similar initiatives in other Desi languages. One loftiest long-term goal of the HB Initiative is a Hamari Boli Wikipedia :) Indo-Pak conflict is the most explosive nuclear threat today. A major problem in bilateral relations is extremely negative sentiments among common-folk, largely due to establishment propaganda & lack of popular interaction. Cross border travel is a nightmare, due to state policies. Nonpolitical cross border P-to-P platforms are vital to enable maximum people interact freely. The Open-Source approach will also enable large-scale People-to-People Communication and Collaboration. Better public acquaintance will result in reduced negative sentiments & reduced support for militarism. Serving as the platform, the larger Hamari Boli Initiative will set the stage for Opensource Curricula and Textbooks in Hamari Boli. Most significantly, a Hamari Boli translation of English Wikipedia will be an invaluable source of neutral and objective scholarly info on any topic. Will arouse great competition –and thus communication-- from all sides which will ultimately result in premium quality encyclopedic content in Hamari Boli, replicated in other regional languages as well. 'Bridging the English Medium / Hindi-Urdu Medium Apartheid' :Main article: English / Vernacular Medium Apartheid in South Asia , :Main article: Open Desi Initiative Worst victim of the unholy divide is the public education system, particularly in North India & Pakistan, where on one hand, the ruling elite have deliberately kept Hindi and Urdu -and all other regional languages- fossilized in the name of faux nationalism and on the other, created 'several' parallel English-medium schooling systems that ensure that the best positions always go to the elite, middle order to middle-class and only lower level to Hindi/Urdu medium masses.. Any attempts at reform and modernization are always frowned upon, with zealots going as far as denouncing any efforts as anti-national and thus Hindi and Urdu are condemned to remain forever stunted and identified with social and economic backwardness. The hegemony is so pervasive that even private initiatives, where there can be no establishment influence are marred by linguistic chauvinism of Hindi and Urdu zealots. Hindi and Urdu Wikipedias are live evidence of what is being done with Hindi and Urdu, both use some alien language that nobody speaks! being a voluntary undertaking, Wikipedia relies on the good sense of the language community. in case of Hindi and Urdu, the conditioning has been so effective that the very people that should be changing things have self-appointed themselves as defenders of status-quo. What good is an encyclopedia if no one can understand it? The same thing that happened to our text books is now happening to open-source, both Hindi and Urdu Wikipedias are largely advertising the 'Official Story' instead of dispassionate objective truth that is the Wiki standard. This is absolute mockery of the open-knowledge idea! 'Status recognition' :Main article: Desi, :Main article: Languages of South Asia We are of the opinion that the politically motivated division of The Hindustani Language as Hindi & Urdu was an epic injustice and disservice to the language and 1Billion+ speakers.The deliberate disseverance of literary canon, forced sanskritization and persianization, super-enforced with extreme digraphia has on one hand resulted in depriving the speakers of almost half of their very own linguistic heritage and on the other exacerbated anti Hindi-Urdu sentiments in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan! Reuniting and rebranding Hindi-Urdu as Hamari Boli will also help assert its neutral, shared & inclusive lingua franca status and will hopefully lead to reducing the anti Hindi-Urdu sentiment. We believe that the artificial Hindi-Urdu divide is detrimental to greater South Asian interest as it severely limits the reach and accessibility of the language. The peculiar brands of Hindi and Urdu (the so-called 'Standard') manufactured as national languages in India and Pakistan since partition are patently un-natural as they do not represent the language as it is held by the people but are solely based on the establishments' ideal of the national language. The interest of the people will be far better served if the efforts and money being wasted on addressing either of the two scripts are invested in creating and promoting content accessible to all Hindi-Urdu speakers alike. Testimony to the argument is the fact that both 'Official Hindi' and 'Official Urdu' can only be found in text books and official speeches. Popular Hindi-Urdu is essentially the same (except for the script) across India & Pakistan (and among the worldwide Desi diaspora) and that is what we call Hamari Boli, the lingua franca of the Desi People! South Asia is home to 1.7Billion Desis and 400+ regional languages, written using 20+ distinct writing systems. Just like Mandarin, Hamari Boli is the most widely spoken and used language in the Indo-Pak subcontinent and With 1Billion+ speakers worldwide, ranks only 2nd to Mandarin. Just as Arabic is the language of the Arab World, Hamari Boli is the lingua franca of the Desi World. Not just Indo-Pak but entire South Asia indeed i.e. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Mauritius, Srilanka, Afghanistan and the 50Mn+ Desi Diaspora worldwide. The very name "Hamari Boli" (Our Langauge) is neither Shudh Hindi nor Saaf Urdu and brings an air of familiarity for all desis and reinforces the idea of it being''' "The Desi Lingua Franca". In light of the above, '''Hamari Boli undeniably deserves being adopted as the 7th Official UN Language. We're petitioning the UN in this regard, undertaking and offering full assistance in terms of funds and all the many project needs. To the end, we're setting up a formal consortium dedicated to HB adoption, strongly urge and invite all South Asian governements to join the "Hamara Consortium" in pursuing and advocating the case for Hamari Boli at the UN. What are we doing & How are we doing it? :Main article: Hamare Projects As evident from details, the larger Hamari Boli Initiative is conceived as a perpetual enterprise striving towards the goals and objectives outlined above. Starting with Phase-I, several ventures and activities are undertaken and several more are planned and will be floated in due course. Longerm roadmap is divided among successive milestones and phases. 'Phase I' #Hamari Boli Wiki #English-to-HamariBoli Wiktionary (10k words) #Hamara Translator #Desi Answers #Peace.HamariBoli.com #Desi Consortium for Hamari Boli 'Hamari Boli Wiki' :Main article: Hamari Boli Wiki . The online hub of all activities. 'Desi WordNet' :Main article: Hamara WordNet Conceptualized as the definitive Lexical Database / Digital Corpus of Hamari Boli, along the lines of Princeton WordNet and Oxford English Corpus, Desi WordNet is the back-bone of HB Initiative. 'English-to-Hamari Boli Wiktionary' Roman Hindi-Urdu is already in vogue and the newer generations are all comfortable using it on web, IMs and SMS -Indians & Pakistanis send over 100Million SMSs daily in Roman-. However, the problem is that there's no standardization and for any standard to be widely agreed upon, there needs to be significant content in it. What better than a WordNet / Digital Corpus? An ideal match for the obvious reason that it has the most popular appeal. There are over 150Million internet users in the region (and 50Million+ diaspora) and Google Trends reports 5Million+ 'Dictionary' related searches each month from Indo-Pak! The numbers are only expected to grow in foreseeable future. Who wouldn't just love quality, free dictionaries :) Therefore, our first undertaking is the Hamari Boli Dictionaries Project. the idea is to compile Hamari Boli Dictionaries (Eng-to-HB, HB-to-Eng, HB-to-HB, HB-to-Major World Languages, HB-to-Major Regional Languages) and publish in collaboration with Wikimedia Foundation at hb.Wiktionary.org under Creative Commons! Having words and meanings of words from both modern Hindi and Urdu in roman script, readers of both Devanagari and Perso-Arabic scripts will benefit equally. For example, the entry for "Knowledge" will be; ::::::::::Knowledge :::::::::::::= Ilm :::::::::::::= Daanish :::::::::::::= Idraak :::::::::::::= Vidyaa :::::::::::::= Gyaan As above, the full range of Hindi-Urdu is being brought together. All English words have all meanings in Hindi and Urdu. By using the Roman alphabet, it will be accessible to both Nastaliq and Devanagari readers alike and will also be an invaluable resource for new learners of Hamari Boli (Hindi-Urdu). Version 1: 'Starting out with 30k+ words compiled by Mr.Waseem Siddiqui. We intend to seed version 1.0 with 100k words. Depending on community interest and contribution, the dictionary will keep on expanding like Wikitionary (English Wikitionary at en.wikitionary.org now boasts 2 million plus entries!). New features like mobile dictionaries, human pronunciation, etymologies, part of speech, synonyms, antonyms etc and support for regional Desi languages and other major world languages will be added in later versions. 'Hamara Translator The web version will not be available offline. To enable offline access, dictionary packs to be used with Lingoes Translator will be released regularly (based on wiki). Lingoes Translator is a desktop dictionary look-up application that enables instant point and lookup functionality for any word, anywhere on screen, online AND offline! 1-Click Desktop Dictionary Look-up Application for offline and program independent access to above published dictionary (similar to www.Babylon.com) 'Desi Answers' Questions & Answers Wiki in Hamari Boli for all things Desi 'Desi Peace Stimulus' :Main article: Desi Peace Stimulus The decades long Indo-Pak animosity is the result of cunning cultivation of enmity thru Education and Media by the establishment and political class. Large scale People-to-People interaction and correct knowledge of history willlead to a sea-change in popular sentiment, ultimately leading to logical Indo-Pak friendship and greater South Asianpeace & prosperity. With 1.7 Billion people, South Asia is one of the fastest growing economic regions with more than60% population under 25. More than 60% mobile penetration and IT is booming everywhere. India is one of the BRICSnations, and since 2000s, the general economic growth have created a very large urban middle class that is eager tochange old politics, willing to look beyond the status quo, optimistic about the fruits of modernization and economicgrowth and also ever more equipped with tools to voice their opinion and drive large-scale social and economicchange. However, the nascent phenomenon needs to be carefully nurtured, facilitated and channeled into a Pan South Asian People-to-People Communication & Collaboration Initiative for greater regional peace and economic development. 'Peace.HamariBoli.com' 'Seventh Official UN Language' South Asia is home to 1.7Billion Desis and 400+ regional languages, written using 20+ distinct writing systems. Just like Mandarin, Hamari Boli is the most widely spoken and used language in the Indo-Pak subcontinent and With 1Billion+ speakers worldwide, ranks only 2nd to Mandarin. Just as Arabic is the language of the Arab World, Hamari Boli is the lingua franca of the Desi World. Not just Indo-Pak but entire South Asia indeed i.e. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Mauritius, Srilanka, Afghanistan and the 50Mn+ Desi Diaspora worldwide. The very name "Hamari Boli" (Our Langauge) is neither Shudh Hindi nor Saaf Urdu and brings an air of familiarity for all desis and reinforces the idea of it being''' "The Desi Lingua Franca". '''Desi Consortium for Hamari Boli In light of the above, Hamari Boli undeniably deserves being adopted as the 7th Official UN Language. We're petitioning the UN in this regard, undertaking and offering full assistance in terms of funds and all the many project needs. To the end, we're setting up a formal consortium dedicated to HB adoption, strongly urging and inviting all SAARC governements to join the "Desi Consortium for Hamari Boli", the formal body constituted to pursue, advocate and promote the case for Hamari Boli to adopted as an official UN language alongside Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian & Spanish. Long-term Roadmap 'Desi Language Labs' App Suite: Complete Applications Suite for seamless & effortless 1-click Dictionary lookup aross devices and operating systems with apps for Mobiles, iPads/Tablets, iPhones etc Specializing in language localization software tools and services for organizations, companies, institutions and governments. 'Open Desi Initiative' :Main article: Open Desi Initiative As affirmed above, one of the overarching objectives of the Hamari Boli Initiative is to address the Indo-Pak Education Emergency. We believe that the traditional modes, methods and channels of education are bloated with establishment propaganda and all kind of other bureucratic non-sense. Still almost entirely neglected in Indo-Pak, free, open-source textbooks like FlexBooks, content like Wikipedia, Instructional Media & evalutation tech like the Khan Academy are most promising approaches to ensure same quality education to everyone, everywhere at a fraction of cost and hassle than what the traditional system requires. That is what we hope to accomlish under the ODI banner over next three years with; 'Desi Educators Network' Online platform for educators, academics, social entrepreneurs, policy makers, students and parents to collaborate towards developing and distributing open-source curricula for primary and secondary students in South Asia. 'Open-source Text Books' A hybrid of FlexBooks and Wikibooks models. Neatly organized in curricula format and freely available via internet. Written in a "Modernized Hamari Boli" these textbooks will be arranged such that teachers and students following various primary & secondary curricula will be able to find all material required to master respective curriculum. Initial focus will be completing science subjects for Primary and Secondary standards in Hamari Boli. HB Books will in turn inspire and galvanize similar initiatives among other Desi languages 'Language Learning' Proficiency in English language is almost a must for a successful academic and professional career anywhere in South Asia. In recent years, English teaching has become a very profitable business and hundreds of thousands of students spend countless money and efforts into learning it thru overcharged books/media and so-called 'Language Institutes' mushrooming everywhere. We'll be adapting/developing free, open-source books, instructional media (videos, animations etc) and testing platform for English learning in Hamari Boli for all Desi learners. Same model will be replicated rightafter for Hamari Boli learning material 'Khan Academy Hamari Boli' Complete Khan Academy Platform i.e. Learning/Teaching + Testing + Evaluation + Reporting will be ported in Hamari Boli, accessible free 24x7 @ KhanAcademy.HamariBoli.com 'Hamari Boli Wikipedia' {C}set the ship sailing with Phase-I, more specifically, the money raised thru this fundraiser will go towards the development and delivery of; English-to-HamariBoli Dictionary: v1.0, Compilation, Digitization and Publishing of 10,000 words at HB.Wiktionary.Org Development & distribution of What If The Campaign Doesn't Meet $12k Goal? We also plan to develop and publish open-source Hamari Boli learning courses at Wikibooks.org Hamari Boli Wikipedia: Khan Academy Hamari Boli is another major undertaking taken under How can you Help? Well by 'Contributing' of course :) We understand that not everyone is able to donate, but word of mouth can go a long way. Share this with your friends, Like us on Facebook, Follow on Twitter and help us reach most by; Posting this campaign to your social networks like Facebook & Twitter, Blog about us (dont forget to send us a link and we'll publish your piece at Peace.HamariBoli.com). If this campaign meets the $12k goal, we'll not only be able to smoothly execute and deliver Phase-I but it will also enable us to demonstrate to Institutions and Foundations that the world needs this and wants us to carry-on! Future Ambitions:Desktop, Mobile, iPad apps for seamless access across devices, online & offline. Devanagari-Roman-Transliteration engines for effortless transcription of Devanagari/Nastaliq/Roman texts to and from any of the 3 scripts at the click of a button. Hamari Boli Wikipedia (Translation of English wiki) Other areas such as literary events, Desi news and blogs, film festivals, writing contests, collective book writing initiatives and several others are being actively explored. other forms of Hamari Boli Fiji Hindi, Carribean Hindi Open Invitation for Open Collaboration Hamare Challenges! Challenge 1 Research Papers Hamare Partners Hamare Associates Hamare Ambassadors Hamare Researchers / Associate Researchers Hamare Stars Hamare Patrons Dedications Hamara Cinema Bollywood is perhaps the single most important influence in keeping Hindi-Urdu alive for the masses. When government institutions were viciously victimizing Hamari Boli (sanscritization &) Aman Ki Asha Dr. Tariq Rehman Justice Markanday Katju Shades of Hamari Boli Did you know that Hindi & Urdu are actually ONE language? Of course Yes! About time! No, am surprised! NO! They're NOT! Latest activity Category:Browse Category:Hamari Boli Initiative Category:Browse Category:Browse